Officials say salvage of damaged cruise liner planned for summer

(By Sandra Cordon)
(ANSA) - Rome, January 10 - Removal of the Costa Concordia
cruise liner that sank off the coast of Tuscany in January 2012
will begin in June, civil protection officials said Friday.

"We confirm that the timing for the removal of the vessel
will be the month of June," Franco Gabrielli, civil protection
chief, told a press conference.

The final choice of a port where the cruise liner will be
hauled for salvage should be made in March, he added.

Right now, 12 ports and companies from at least six
different nations are bidding for the job of salvaging the
enormous cruise liner destroyed in Italy's worst maritime
disaster since the Second World War.

The government "would prefer a national" bid for the job,
with Italian ports in Piombino, Genoa, Palermo and Civitavecchia
all in contention, said Andrea Orlando, the minister of the
environment.

Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando said his city and its unions
are ready to tackle the job, should their Sicilian shipyard win
the contract.

"It would be a significant choice and great support for
Palermo," said the mayor.

Thirty-two people died and hundreds were injured in the
crash off the Tuscan island of Giglio two years ago when the
cruise ship, carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew
members, struck a rock formation and sank after it sailed too
close to the island.

The ship's ex-captain, Francesco Schettino, is on trial for
multiple charges of manslaughter and dereliction of duty in
leaving his post during the chaos after the cruise liner began
to sink.
He could face 20 years in prison if convicted.

Earlier this week, a panel of judges in Tuscany said
experts will board the vessel on January 23, weather permitting,
to investigate certain equipment that only became accessible
after a major operation in September that turned the lurching,
semi-submerged wreck upright.

The new forensic examination of the Costa Concordia wreck
is related to the criminal trial and comes after requests put to
the court by the consumer group Codacons and the criminal
defense for Schettino.
The complex operation in September took almost 24 hours and
since then efforts have been made to keep the ship upright and
stable until it is towed away and dismantled.
The entire project to remove the stricken Concordia from
the island of Giglio has already cost more than 600 million
euros, said Michael Thamm, the chief executive officer of Costa
Cruises.

And its impact has been enormous, Thamm told the news
conference he shared with Gabrielli.

"This incident is part of our DNA, and we will never forget
it," said Thamm.

"Our mission is to make sure that never happens again, not
only for Costa but throughout the cruise industry".
Schettino continues to argue that he was a hero, helping to
rescue passengers after the ship crashed on a rock formation.

However, comments from the black box aboard the Costa
Concordia cruise liner played in a Tuscan courtroom last month
during the ex-captain's trial revealed that crewmembers feared
running aground even before impact.

"It's too close, this is crazy!" said an anonymous voice
from the ship's command center before it slammed into rocks and
partially capsized after it took a new route around Giglio
Island as ordered by Schettino.

The black box recordings were played as prosecutors heard
testimony from First Officer Ciro Ambrosio, who plea-bargained a
sentence of one year and 11 months for multiple manslaughter.

Italy's supreme Cassation Court will review on January 31
an appeal motion against the plea bargain made with him and four
other staff members involved in the Costa Concordia crash.

Prosecutors in Florence late last year contested a judge's
lighter jail sentences as part of the bargain given in July to
the five, each accused of multiple manslaughter.

Prosecutors argue the suspects did not earn their plea
bargain, "having made no particular contribution to the
investigations" with their "generic testimony".